Union threatens to shut down all Unisa campuses this week

The Academic and Professional Staff Association (Apsa) claimed to have brought operations at the University of South Africa’s (Unisa) main campus in Pretoria to a “complete stop” on Tuesday.

“This was a demonstration which showed Unisa management that they completely lack commitment regarding fastracking of insourcing processes‚” the union’s Unisa branch general secretary‚ Boitumelo Senokoane‚ said.

A terse statement posted on the varsity’s website said simply: “There is protest action on Unisa’s Muckleneuk and Sunnyside campuses. Both campuses are currently closed.”

Senokoane vowed that the protest action would spread and “the shutdown will be escalated to all Unisa campuses throughout South Africa during the course of this week”.

Apsa said workers felt “it’s prudent that they resort to going back to the street until Unisa management put concrete proposals on the table” after negotiations broke down when the union accused it of acting in “bad faith” on Monday.

At issue appears to be the union’s claim that “Unisa service providers are non-compliant at all in terms of labour law and they continue to disrespect decisions of Unisa council to stop victimising and mistreating workers”.

It said those workers had been subject to “unfair dismissals‚ un-procedural disciplinary processes and many other forms”.

“Workers have made it very clear that other universities have made progress on insourcing including those that started the process after Unisa agreed to insourcing‚ however Unisa remains behind and its not making progress at all‚” Senokoane said.

Tuesday’s protest had been announced by the Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command (EFFSC) — claiming to speak on behalf “workers of Unisa and Apsa — on Monday‚ but the union’s statement on Tuesday‚ made no mention of the student organisation.